Modern aircraft propulsive systems tend to have increasingly large by-pass ratios in order to achieve the high energetic efficiencies desirable for their operation. The said aircraft propulsive systems may be of the cowled type (like turbofans) or uncowled (including systems having propellers and those variously referred to as unducted fan engines (UDF), open rotor engines, prop-fans or high speed turbo-prop engines).
All the modern high by-pass engines used in the aircraft industry have a characteristically large diameter which imposes geometric constraints to their installation on the airframe, particularly when the propulsive system is mounted on the fuselage as a certain clearance must be maintained between the airframe and the engine cowl or open rotor blade tips, depending on whether the propulsive system is cowled or uncowled. In the case of fuselage mounted engines, aerodynamic considerations favour a concept of installation consisting on a single slender strut or pylon extending between the airframe and the engine. Examples of this engine mounting arrangement can be seen in patents U.S. Pat. No. 2,863,620 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,953,812, presenting specific design problems particularly in respect of the large static and dynamic loads that arise at the attachment of the pylon to the airframe.
There exist solutions in the state of the art which have the problem of presenting high structural discontinuities or apertures in the airframe, like it is described for example in document U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,959, which discloses a configuration of branch or yoke that does not allow the dismounting of the engine support structure or that needs big cuts in the airframe for allowing the dismounting of the structure. The possibility of dismounting the engine support structure is highly desirable for allowing the easy change of said support structure in the case of damage produced for example by engine FIRE or by the accidental impact of objects onto the support structure.
The present invention comes to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks.